Regarding the Rangers, who will dip their toes into a more challenging portion of the schedule with games in New Jersey, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and at the Garden against Boston in the eight-day week beginning on Saturday:
1. It is two weeks since Filip Chytil left the Nov. 2 game against Carolina late in the second period with what is believed at least the fourth concussion of his young career and has not been back on the ice since suffering delayed effects of an early first-period collision that night with Jesper Fast.
There is concern for this 24-year-old who has been sidelined 10 different times in-season since 2018-19. This does not include his two-week absence from training camp with an unidentified upper-body injury. This does not incorporate the suspected broken cheekbone Chytil sustained while struck in the face with a stick during Team Czechia’s second game in this year’s World Championship tournament, the effects of which lingered deep into the summer, as the center told me the first day of camp.
We do not know whether Chytil is genetically predisposed to concussions. We do know from volumes of evidence that concussions begat concussions, with symptoms and recovery lengths increasing with each injury to the brain.
This last one did not occur because Chytil put himself in a vulnerable position on the ice. Indeed, he looked up, saw Fast in enough time so he was able to diminish the impact of the open-ice collision. No. 72 bounced right up and indeed played eight more shifts before exiting. Still, this.
There is concern for this personable and engaging 24-year-old about his future quality of life. That is the priority.
But, moving from the human side to the business side, the Rangers cannot know whether they can count on Chytil. It’s no one’s fault, and certainly not his, but if No. 72’s status is in question, general manager Chris Drury’s priority will be to acquire a third-line center.
Yes, it appears as if the Blueshirts will be in need of a top-six right wing, though it would be a mistake to eliminate Kaapo Kakko from reconsideration. The Finn’s underlying numbers don’t line up at all with his lack of productivity. Nevertheless, if not No. 24, the hierarchy will be on the lookout for a winger to ride shotgun for Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider.
But management may well have to hoard its cap space and tradable assets in order to acquire a center if Chytil’s health and availability remain problematic. Which, at this point, they essentially have become by definition.
The Blueshirts may be able to patchwork it for a spell with Nick Bonino in the middle of the third line but that’s what it would be. Patchwork. There is no one in Hartford, either, to provide top-nine minutes in the middle.
2. There’s always the it’s-still-early qualifier, but at one year for $825,000, Erik Gustafsson’s free-agent signing represents the canniest investment on the market.
The 31-year-old Swede has been the salve applied to the wound that knocked Adam Fox onto LTIR, adeptly switching to his off-side to form an effective second pair with Ryan Lindgren. Gustafsson, 3-7-10, has been dynamic with the puck, he’s creative and there are times he appears to be all over the place but his — and the team’s — defense has not suffered for it.
Gustafsson, in fact, has been on for 12 goals for and seven against at five-on-five for a club-leading 63.16 goals for percentage, with Zibanejad the runner-up at 62.5. Gustafsson is plus-seven. That leads the team. And he has, at least in the short run of four-plus games, has stepped in almost seamlessly to replace Fox at the top of the first power-play unit.
The narrative has progressed far beyond, “Oh, he played for Peter Laviolette in Washington.” The narrative has become, “He has been a lifesaver.”
Gustafsson becomes eligible for a contract extension on Jan. 1, but this home run that the Rangers hit last July 1 is more likely than not to make the defenseman unaffordable. Next July 1, it will be the Swede’s turn to hit a grand slam.
3. Meanwhile, Peter Trocheck is not only leading the NHL with an otherworldly 64.4 percent success rate on faceoffs, he has won at least two-thirds of his draws in six of 14 games, 60 percent in at least 11, and more than half all but once.
He leads the league, Bonino is 12th at 58.6 percent and Zibanejad ranks 34th at 53.5 percent with the Blueshirts second in the NHL at 56 percent trailing the Penguins (56.1) by a tick.
Remarkable.
There is obviously a difference between a full season and five weeks, but the last player to finish a season with a faceoff percentage higher than Trocheck’s 64.4 was Montreal’s Yanic Perreault, who led the NHL with a 65.2 mark in 2003-04.
If that name rings a bell, it is because Yanic Perreault is the father of Gabe Perreault, the Blueshirts’ 2023 first-round selection at 23rd overall, who has recorded 15 points (2-13) in his first 10 games as a freshman for Boston College.